


Chinese Emperors Wear Yellow 中国皇帝穿黄色

by AlmesivaMoonshadow



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 4
Genre: 80s, Abusive Parents, Angst, Angst and Feels, Bittersweet, Britannophobia, Childhood Trauma, Colonialism, Crime and criminals, Dark Humor, Dysfunctional Family, F-Bomb, Father-Son Disagreements, Father-Son Relationship, Growing Up, Heavy Angst, Historical References, Homophobia, Hong Kong, Horrible Fathers, Identity Issues, Imperialism, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Neglect, OC, Original Character(s), Other, Outdated Ideals, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Centric, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Prequelverse, Puberty, Self-Discovery, Self-Esteem Issues, Slurs, Strict Families, Teenage Rebellion, The Fight for the Freedom of Expression, Toxic Masculinity, Triads, machismo, pop culture references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-26 23:36:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmesivaMoonshadow/pseuds/AlmesivaMoonshadow
Summary: Pagan Min realizes what the color pink truly means to him. He also realizes exactly the consequences it has.





	Chinese Emperors Wear Yellow 中国皇帝穿黄色

* * *

 

 

**♢**

 

 

 

 

His father had, well, certain expectations of him. And what father doesn't?

Fathers and their expectations always go hand in hand, like shit and flies.

The inevitable after-effect of too much fecal-matter dumped in one spot and left untended.

 

 

 

And Hong Kong, at that time, might have been more liberal then ever before, blossoming, growing and opening up to the world after a century under British rule, but Gang Min Sr. always believed the old ways are the best ways. They survived as long as they did for good reason. Because they were proven methods. Sturdy. Endurant. Of value. Standing the test of time. Changes. The centuries. His father never had a taste for novelty in any shape, way or form. Fads. Trends. Experimentation. He was vehemently againts it, in fact. It was an illness of this new modern era - infecting the youth and stifling their motivation in order to pursue shallow, passing entertainment, ridicolous sources of fuffilment and the basest levels of what he considered self-degradation. In his mind's eye, a man's purpose is simple; produce a family, serve his duties humbly, have respect towards his elders always, never question anything and go through life not sticking out. This chronic need to be different and do things againts the expected norm, he'd simply shrug off, is merely a sign of some deeply-ingrained human insecurity coming to light. Any individual that must prove themselves to the outside world with jarring demonstrations of oneself cannot be a person of high-dignity or even sane mind.

 

 

 

 

  
But, the thing was, what growing boy wasn't tempted to try cocaine and the color pink at least once?

He sure was.

 

 

 

 

 

His father, though - his father wasn't like other fathers. In fact, few fathers were like him in the first place. His father had a reputation to maintain. A status quo. A way of life, even. When all the world changed, and this city, and it's customs, and it's music, and it's fashion, and it's cinema, and it's regime and way of life, his father remained the same. Practicing the same oaths of brotherhood. The same crime to punishment ratio. The same hierarchy. He was the son, the only son, of a Triad Patriarch, Gang Min the Elder, named Gang Min the Younger, after him. Although, he hated the name and the connection it went with it, it was most obviously expected of him to live up to certain things after his father retires, in a certain timeframe, when certain people give him the greenlight to do so, under a certain astrological balance, when the right stars align for a most harmonical ascendance to his new position, as was tradition. Treating him a certain way. Shaping his existance a certain way. Addressing him a certain way. Even dressing him a certain way. He couldn't even do that on his own accordance. Put on mere pieces of fabric he felt were enjoyable to him and him alone for no reason other then liking it.

 

 

 

Liking things - what a bizarre concept.

He disliked enough things as is, like his own name for starters.

So to like something, truly like something, and then have it denied?

It hurt more then any of his father's admonishments.

 

 

 

_-"You are not my son. No son of mine is a faggot."-_

 

 

  
Gang Min merely whispered at one point, uttering the insult he felt was the lowest of the low - it was the lowest of the low to his father, especially in this world so much hinged on the man. The man's manhood. The man's manliness. The man's everything - denouncing him for like the fifteenth time by now (it stopped hurting the fifth time he did it), slumping back and reclying in his deep red cherry arm chair and staring into the fireplace, refusing to even face him, deep into their feud, not raising his voice or even sounding antagonistic, appearing almost tired, exhausted, like a man somewhat drained by his own negativity, but nonetheless, hurling an insult at Pagan like it was the most natural and expected thing to do. Yes, Pagan. Searching for new ways to call himself to distance himself from everything he was and should have been, he came up with that. An ancient king of Burma famous for murdering his own father and extended famiy and usurping the throne, because that's what he's been dreaming of doing for a while now. A funny way of relating. And this slur his own parent had attached to him, it wasn't even a matter of sexuality or preferance. It was a matter of injured pride. Gang Min's associates, his subordinates, his hitmen, his enforcers, his elders, his rivals, even they could never imagine to heir of the boss of all bosses totterin a floral printed silky shirt in broad daylight without zero shame, and even, shock of all shock, appearing proud and content with himself when he should have presented himself prim, proper and with an air of seriousness. That's all this came down to. This ruckus. Fashion disagreements. The humanity. For a man who claimed himself so hard to touch, so spiritual and so lofty, his father sure as hell spent a lot of time focusing on the worldly and the extremely trivial. _  
_

 

 

 

_-"It's the eighties, sir!"-_

 

 

  
Pagan shot back feeling like some sort of streotypical student at a protest or rally with a large, orange megaphone, slipping up by accident, and calling him his father by his preffered title even while attempting to be quippy and sarcastic, a sort of a teenage-rebel, cursing himself and the fact that old, igrained habits die hard - something he was raised with - the fact that children should keep a polite, respectful distance from their parents and even, if one can help it, engage in any sort of affection lest they grow up to be co-depedent, weak and pushovers - perhaps he wasn't, in a bizzarely ironic sense, all that different from the dynosaur he called his old man. He had to unlearn these things. He had to unlearn them. He needed to be rid of these habits the way a trapped dog needed to graw it's legs free from the iron claws of the contraption it got caught in.

 

 

  
_-"What did you say?"-_

 

 

  
Gang demanded, sterner, challenging him to repeat what he said, daring him with a glare most grown men would quiver before and a glare he himself has quivered before - but, Pagan has been slapped before, beaten before, insulted before, punished before, made an example of before - there wasn't much his father could have done now that he hasn't already done before except, perhaps, murder him on the spot - and he wouldn't have done that. For all his lineup of flaws, he still wouldn't have. And heaven knows he had the power and the stomach to do it if he only wanted to. Truth of the matter was, in the long run, Gang needed him more then he needed Gang. Gang needed an heir, that's precisely why Gang was willing to break his spine, swallow his pride, climb down from his imaginary cloud to mold him into the man he imagined inheriting him, and Pagan, well, didn't need a dictatorial despot lording over him.

 

 

  
_-"I said, "It's eighties.'" Madonna! Dallas! The Dynasty! Walkmen! Shoulder pads! Pablo Escobar! The Wedding of Lady Diana and Prince Charles!"-_

 

 

  
Pagan repeated, without giving it much thought, listing all the things he felt period-appropriate on a quick whim, this time with a stronger intionation and more empasis behind his words so their meaning would finally stick and have some damn effect and with what he hoped was a sense of renewed pride and courage, but most likely, to his father, he sounded obscene as always. Looked obscene too. Tasteless. Tacky. Unbefit to be a full-blooded Min. Certainly the talk of the city, as they say. And that's what hurt his old man the most. The fact that people were talking, regardless if it was in a positive sense or a negative one - or even a neutral or disinterested one. Bland middle-grounds were almost more insulting then straight-out hatred and distaste of them as a whole. They were talking. Rather then bowing his head to them in fear and quivering at the very mention of their name by sheer default and beyond any sense of logic and reason. The way they always did. They were an organization of renown and prestige. They weren't celebrities. And Gang Min Sr. didn't appreciate being treated as such.

 

 

 

  
_-"It's the Lunar Calendar era of the Rat to me."-_

 

 

 

Gang sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead in irritation, not attempting to be comedic, funny or jovial, merely trying to showcase how very disinterested and fundamentaly unimpressed he was with the world in general and it's comings and goings that he felt it beneath him to even measure time the same way they did, taking a long whiff out of his gold-embedded, decorative cigar holder soon afterwards, blowing out the remnants of the scented opium smoke through his nostrils and declaring the year the way the Chinese count it in the fashion of some great orator, like it was something as obvious as daylight - like he was the wiser man, and everyone around him utterly ignorant on how things really should be done, the proper way - for one, Pagan couldn't deny the man had style. In a sense, anyway. He was a heinous cunt, yes. But, a heinous cunt with style. His bubble was his own domain, and anyone threatening to pierce through was someone his father immediately deemed lesser. There was no way around him. Pagan was either going to climb this mountain or collapse undearneath it.

 

 

 

  
_-"And pink is just a color. After all, Qing and Ming Dynast Emperors wore yellow. And I can wear pink."-_

 

 

 

Pagan inched closer to where his father was seated, gripping the magneta, vivid silk of his Hawaiian printed shirt on his torso that caused so much discourse and turned so many eyes on the streets of Hong Kong and refusing to let the argument go and be the weakling his father claimed him to be - since when did they become so rigorous that they feared colors? Were colors suddenly sinful? Prohibited? Something that should be scorned, banned and shunned? They were a culture of colors. Of art. Of prints and patterns and mastery and his father, who claimed himself such a dyed-in-the-bone, proper conossieur of their culture that spanned over several millenias was here scoffing his nose at the prospect like it was something that was out to infect him.

 

 

Was this a cartel or the Amish?

 

  
_-"You are not an Emperor! You're barely even an adult! A fish that swims againts the current achieves nothing but make it's own existance more difficult!"-_

 

 

  
For once, Gang stood up in outrage, almost as if Pagan comparing himself to royalty in any capacity somehow offended him or stepped on his toes, spilling one of his infamous proverbs and demanding respect as he set down his cigar into the ashtray next to his armchair, and Pagan didn't remember his own flesh and blood giving a look this cold ever since he's been caught swapping men's fashion magazines secretly, under his covers, with a flashlight in the dead of night, at age eight and then aftwards, deemed inappropriate and somehow abnormal for expressing an interest in the contents of his mother's wardrobe and whatever advice she had to share with him on the subject of attire. It's almost like his own father would be far happier with him shooting heroin up his veins then having a passion for anything he didn't personally agree with. And he didn't personally agree with a lot of things. Nearly everything.

 

 

 

  
Mostly the things Pagan's own mother enjoyed, which served as the ultimate irony.

Why even marry a woman who you absolutely hate everything about? A question for the sages.

 

 

 

_-"This is because of her, isn't it?"-_

 

 

 

As he turned to leave, his father spoke up, almost as if knowing his exact train of thoughts during this short-lived stalemate.

 

 

 

  
_-"She spoiled you rotten. Made you into a willfull, disobedient child. Coddled you_ _when I tried to make you into a man. A real man. A man as a man should be. Not this -_ _this spectacle the British boarding schools, her education and all her wild ideas and_ _fantasies have turned you into. She's made you weak. Irresponsible. She let you play_ _with her pearls and combs! As if you were a daughter! Not a son! Someone I cannot put_ _my life's work into with a clear concience. She's practically destroyed you and for_ _hat I grieve, because I could have put an end to it at any moment."-_

 

 

 

 

His father continued, stopping him in his tracks, speaking more in one second then Pagan's ever heard him speak in his entire life, grim and dark as he was, borderline heartfelt at this point in their futile going back and forth, but not enough to actually sound legitimately empathetic, more like a living rock that regrets the fact that it has to be move by half an inch to accomodate someone else then a person actually battling with any sort of pain. His mother? Destroying him? Turning him into anything but a genuine man? Pagan's done everything in his power to be this illusive idea of a genuine man his father had in mind. He's slept with prostitutes the organization provided for him when they believed it was the right moment for him to venture into the world of adulthood. He's killed. He's spilled blood. He followed orders. He drank. He cut. Mainly himself. Let the bitter, hard liquor burn out every vestige of childhood and innocence out of him in a drugged-up slur of emotions and chaos. He's hidden his tears. He's hidden everything. He's grown up and shiriveled up inside and grown up again and then died a little too. And all that before the age of fifteen. He was seventeen, pushing his adulthood as of now. And again, here they were, debating which prints for clothing were appropriate and which weren't like it was a thing of universal importance next to everything they've done to each other.

 

 

 

 

His mother was the only one who understood him.  
And whenever he felt lost and unwated and broken he'd cuddle into her bed.  
The warm sheets were always pink as was her entire room.  
It associated him of what actual acceptance was like.  
Easily the best memories of his childhood.  
So, now, whenever he wore pink, he felt that once more.  
The nostalgia and the seratonin in his brain kicked in like a sort of high.

 

 

Happiness.

 

 

_-"No, she actually loved me, sir."-_

 

 

 

  
_She loved you too, you dumb, old coot, for all your many, many faults - though it's absolutely beyond me_ _why_ , he wanted to add, but decided not to, reazling that he once again, all too late, to his disappointance in his own bloody self, called his father sir. Something he vowed to try to unlearn from doing. They had these discussions all too many times for him to re-use the same old arguments he's used a thousand times in a thousand different occasions, all without awail. Instead,a self-named, self-made Pagan Min retorted somberly, bowed his head and only so slightly, simply walked out past the two formally-dressed, armed security guards based at the door, deciding he liked his fashion taste rather fine and didn't care who knew it or approved of it as he sauntered out of the building not asking for permission orlooking back to examine his father's facial expression, escorting himself out of the grey-panneled Golden Triangle Compound and out in the bustling, loud streets of Hong Kong clouded in smog, mist and rain where it was still easier to breath then in the claustophobic, painfully minimalistic smoke joint he just bursted out of like some sort of conqueror or messiah, deciding on a new favourite shade of magneta and how he planned on bleaching his hair if he ever gets his hands on a favourable tone of platinum blonde that his own mother would love, and yes, he couldn't deny that at this point, he was finding himself acting extremely petty and that it was in part to annoy his father, if nothing else. Victory in his stride, he knew nobody could stop him now either ways. The year was 1983 and Pagan Min felt like he won a battle.

 

 

 

Next year this time around, he's going to kill this man if he doesn't die of natural causes first, he promised himself - but, whatever the case, he would wear pink to his funeral.


End file.
